POLITICS
SCIENTIFIC-PRACTICAL CONFERENCE ON OIL STRATEGY
Opening the conference, Chairman of the permanent commission of the Milli Majlis (Parliament) for regional issues, Zahid Garalov told about activities of the district organization of the party at the preparatory stage to the Presidential elections and stated that the society condemns a slander campaign against the Chairman of the Yeni Azerbaijan party, President of Azerbaijan Heydar Aliyev opened by the Yeni Musavat, Hurriyyet, Azadliq and other oppositional newspapers.
Information on the aims of the conference itself, he said, “the conference is dealing with a detailed information on oil strategy carried out by the head of the state for recent ten years, on successful activities of the Vice-president and Bureau member of PACE, First Vice President of SOCAR Ilham Aliyev in this field, so that the active members of the party could use this information during the election campaign”.
Advisor of SOCAR, Doctor of technical sciences, Prof. Eldar Shahbazov made further a report “Ilham Aliyev and new oil strategy of Azerbaijan in context of development of Caspian basin hydro carbons”.
The speaker pointed out that despite of facing difficulties, President Heydar Aliyev’s successful oil policy, embraces not only the development of energy resources in the Azerbaijani sector of the Caspian. The President of Azerbaijan could manage to attract the interests of prestigious oil companies of the world, working in Mexican and Persian Gulfs as well as in northern seas, to the Caspian basin. Azerbaijan, as well as the neighboring states, has eye witnessed the results of this policy within a short period. Big amounts have been invested to development of hydrocarbon reserves of the region.
Due to its oil strategy, Azerbaijan will become one of the richest states of the region in near time, Shahbazov said. The total volume of investments to development of fields in the Azerbaijani sector of the Caspian will reach 15 billion US dollars within upcoming two years. It is expected that by the end-2003, amounts accumulated in the Oil Fund of Azerbaijan from realization of oil and oil products will come to 1 billion 37 thousand US dollars.
Telling on the activities of Vice-president and Bureau member of PACE, First Vice President of SOCAR Ilham Aliyev, the reporter stressed that in this context, Ilham Aliyev is an internationally acknowledged politician having special merits in the implementation of a new oil strategy of Azerbaijan. Being the closest supporter of the President, he has taken an active part in working out of oil contracts, has done a lot of work in objective, just and international understanding of the essence of oil strategy of Azerbaijan, and policy of Azerbaijan in the whole.
Further, the reporter answered the questions of the participants.